3/29/06 Reactions to more Humana Festival plays

Quick response to Rha Goddess' Low (Victor Jory Theatre, 1:30 Sat. 3/25):

At last! Something real. An incredible performance. As gratifying and stunning as the other two Humana shows I've seen have been disappointing.
Very intimate theatre.
Single performer.

In Victor Jory theatre, my favorite of the three AT theatres: square acting space about 25' on a side surrounded on three sides by audience raked up from stage floor. 60-80 capacity?. White stage, very large pure white backdrop. White chair. Black performer. Soundscape plus effects (voices of mother, teacher, principal, etc.; ambient, heavy reverb on her voice at one point). Actor was miked which bothered me in the first moment and then not at all because it was well-done (subtle, unobtrusive) and didn't interfere with the performance at all (and the mike was really hidden this time).

She told the story of Low (diminutive of something), a much abused young black woman with a terrific intelligence and curiosity who suffers from many mental/emotional conditions, is on a lot of medication (when she can get it), goes in and out of institutions, is kicked out by her mother, becomes homeless and desperate, almost dies, ends up in an institution (again) where the story is left (final speech by the performer about what she calls "mental HIV", a plague which is treated by drugs but not addressed.

The storytelling was used to great effect. She narrated (1st person) as she lived/relived the scene with terrific physicality. She spoke to us all with clear direct voice and eye contact. Sharp and clean with simple, abrupt breaks as she moved to the next scene.

Terrific use of the space--very specific; lighting (general with sharp circular or rectangular specials when need) defined the space; alternated between staying in small, sharply defined spaces and using the entire space with great energy. Se moved very, very well--yes, she was quite definitely in her body. Clear, clean, as much movement as needed but no more.

I was quite struck with how available the performer was to the audience. Nothing blocked the exchange. Contrasted in this regard (in every regard) vividly from the apprentice show which I had just seen, in which the student actors pushed us away by virtue of the effort they made to "perform".

Simplicity was key. All the elements (sound, light, speech, movement) were clean, not cluttered.

Clear, committed movement even when walking to a new location and taking position to start a new scene (like Kate Valk though style of two shows very different). Nothing wasted, ever. Absolute commitment to choices made. Strong choices (in writing as well as acting/directing), never tentative. No sense of pulling back, ever, but also no forcing. Focused on the task.

I'm remember her description of seducing her boyfriend: it was so clear that the moves, facial expressions, vocal inflections, all were a very self-conscious code. Clear presentation.

The performance was intense and pretty long (80 minutes, at least). I was aware, near the end, of audience fatigue--and my own a bit, even though I was mesmerized--after she had been really crazy for a really long time.

(I'm sitting in the lobby writing this and the director is giving notes to the performer. I can't really hear what they're saying but I hear her repeating over and over, "Gotcha." Finally, on my way to the next performance, I interrupt them to tell them how very much I appreciated the piece, the acting, writing, directing. They both seemed genuinely appreciative.)


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Quick response to Charr White's Six Years (Bingham Theatre, Sat. 4:00):
Very, very good show. Really good writing, very effectively naturalistic with lots of subtext which the actors employed. Acting was GOOD realism. Very clear, very present, terrific contact, terrific playing of actions. No schmacting. Story was very interesting, told in six-year gaps:1949, '55, '61, '67, and ending in 1973 (I'm pretty sure). Very tied into war and post-war U.S. development but very internal and domestic, too. Not the sort of thing I automatically enjoy but it was so very well done. Nice to see some "conventional" acting that's real and present. Restores my faith that it's possible, though I still prefer the non-realistic styles.

The opening scene was terrific: a husband and wife meet after a separation of six years. He went off to WWII, lived through it but didn't return for a couple of years after the war's end. Two very damaged people terrified of contact but needing it desperately (at least she does). Good, good acting. Extreme but not overdone. Terrific example of playing actions with the sense of really not knowing what would happen next.

All the acting was very good, as it should be (I begin to think that the unevenness of the first show was an anomolous combination of weak writing and weak (in parts) acting). Convincing effect of the passage of 24 years in the way the characters aged. But the main thing was the intense contact almost all the time between characters. As I think back now (next day), the acting wasn't at the level of professionalism that it should always be: not shatteringly brilliant, just doing the job very well. And Roger's right: It's some of the hardest kind of acting to do well.

The playwright, Sharr White, is a friend of Ron Bashford's (and I spoke to him last night only long enough to praise his show and send Ron's greetings). I was really very impressed with the ambition and craftsmanship of the writing. I'd like to look at the script, because I'm assuming that the broken, overlapping dialogue (Mamet-like) was specified in the writing. It required the actors to fill and justify the gaps and created terrific tension and contact between them.


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Reactions to Humana apprentice show "Neon Mirage" (3/25):

Well, it was a real apprentince show, with the audience packed with friends and supporters. A welll-prepared pastiche of writing solicited from a number of much-produced playwrights themed on Las Vegas. The performers were young, earnest, confident, student actors who could sing and speak and move but none of whom seemed particularly present or even in their bodies in more than a technical sense (to use a couple of phrases I seem to be hearing and repeating a lot lately). They were acting their pants off, which is clearly what they were expected to be doing.

I enjoyed aspects of it. The writing was almost always interesting, clever, funny. Much of the acting was perfectly acceptable in the context of the material, the setting, the expectations. One scene, in which two men played two performing white tigers, was truly hilarious. And the performance space was good: arena lab theatre with steeply raked audience around a fairly small acting area with many entrances. Costuming was careful and pretty lavish. Staging was ok and sometimes clever (though got into sightline trouble a few times). Singers were always amplified with "hidden" mikes (why is this always the case? do they think we can't tell?). And the acting, as standard psychological (and in some cases presentational) acting, was never really embarrasing.

But by the end, I found myself vaguely depressed at watching the whole predictable, safe system perpetuating itself. These kids had real promise, but they were being fitted into an aesthetic that has been mired in a kind of smug self-satisfaction for so long.

Oh, come on! What is my problem? I'm a bit tired of this moralizing attitude of mine that seems to find almost everything lacking? Just because a performance doesn't fit into my personal aesthetic doesn't mean it's evil. Especially this weekend, when I'm at what is obviously a festival of mainstream, conventional theatre. I won't get far disapproving of everything.

So: On one hand, these kids were doing a good job, enjoying themselves watching their very hard work using some well-written texts pay off. It was entertaining. Good for them! On the other hand...well, I could say that it was a betrayal of everything that theatre and art could and should be. Which would be true. And the fact that they are students working at what is supposed to be a celebration of "new" work is pretty galling and sad.

But with the next piece, I'm going to make an effort to suspend judgement and see if I can just enjoy myself...


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Reactions to The Scene (Bingham Theatre, Sat. 8:00)

Just the kind of play I don't like: Realism, contemporary New York white setting, sitcom-like jokes, kind of pointless in the end. Having said all that, the writing was truly hilarious at many points, including long misanthropic rants, and the acting & staging were fine, quite appropriate to the style of the play. And the apparently vacuous, beautiful temptress was really quite scary in her self-centeredness (as the play said over and over). So fine. Just, for me, really boring. Probably will be a huge success.

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Reaction: "Natural Selection" by Erik Coble, 2:30 Brown Theatre, 3/26/06

Play was a cartoonish satire set in a somewhat apocolyptic immediate future ("next week") where everybody in online all the time--looks a lot like now. Protagonist works for "Culture Fiesta", an Epcot parody. Problem is that an authentic Indian is needed to replace the dying performers. Protagonist ends up going to Arizona/New Mexico and shooting one with a tranquilizer dart who, when brought back to Orlando, proceeds to disrupt everything. Play climaxes in a huge hurrican when this world ends and people and animals prepare to climb through to the sixth world as in Navajo creation myth.

Started out great but the comic style got old pretty quickly. I think part of the problem was that it was 'way over-produced: staged in the largest theatre and the stage in this configuration was huge. Many fancy effects. I think the play would have been much more effective presented in a tiny theatre on a shoestring budget. Would have packed more of a punch and been funnier, too. Some of the satirical stuff was great (wife constantly online on a huge laptop (labeled "iLap"), son is always upstairs having a virtual education which includes being in a school play and taking swimming lessons. But it was a little play put on a huge stage with a huge budget.

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Reaction: "Hotel Cassiopeia" by Charles Mee & SITI Company, dir. by Anne Bogart, 7:00 Jory Theatre, 3/26/06

At last I got to see an Anne Bogart/SITI production. About time. Although I have very mixed feelings, easily one of the most interesting of the festival offerings.

Entering the theatre: floor and large backdrop covered with old star chart (zodiac?) images, white on blue background. Striking. A teacher's desk (painted white? cream?) situated down center, at which sat the man who would play the central character with his head in his hands. Absolutely still until action began. I was seated at house left end of front row (d.s. audience section), very close to him.

The piece was visually striking, which was impressive given the relatively small space and the number of performers (seven?) and the number of objects. Still managed to have a spare look. As expected, the movement and composition were very conscious and very nice, and the way projections (of old movies) and sound were incorporated was very nice indeed. The play didn't tell a linear story (although there did seem to be a development of events in a way, culminating in the death of the artist's brother and his reaction. Some in the audience found it mystifying (later conversation) but it seemed very accessible to me. Helped to have read the notes, I'll admit.

I resisted it for a good while (in spite of my vow to just enjoy the performances on their own terms). It just seemed so precious, so "aesthetic". But of course the intent was to capture the artist's way of seeing and being in the piece itself, and the intense appreciation of ordinary objects, images, and words, raising them to the status of precious objects, was clearly his style, so I think the piece was a very successful in terms of form reflecting content; I just didn't share the aesthetic. At the time, I remember being reminded of the Open Theatre's style (or Chaikin's kind of speaking and writing at least); I loved it then and it seems annoying now. (Suddenly, I'm also reminded of descriptions in Wally Shawn's "The Fever" of opening Christmas presents or eating food--the love of beauty as a sign of refinement, of privilege.) For me, the characters of Pierrot and the Ballerina summed it up (though the characters themselves were more interesting than their images). However, eventually I managed to let go of this kind of resistance and let myself enjoy the beautiful imagery. I became quite moved by the end, as well as impressed by the technical mastery of the group (including

The acting (meaning, I suppose, verbal/emotional interaction) was very good. The characters were carefully and clearly deliniated, though there, too, there was a kind of preciousness that I found a bit much. Similar physical and vocal care and attention to detail as in the Wooster Group, but the choices were so much less interesting. Seemed to convey a real self-absorbtion and a kind of self-satisfied "artistry". Was that due to the nature of this piece or is it characteristic of all the company's work? Nevertheless, the acting also allowed for a good deal of empathy.

I had a brief but very interesting conversation with one of the actors (the Ballerina) after the performance, in which she said that they (or she) had a hard time with the piece at first for the same reasons as me: She said she just found it so "twee". I gather it was different from their other stuff. I have to get to their Midsummer Night's Dream at ASF next month.

3/24/06 Reactions to "Act a Lady" by Jordan Harrison (Humana)

Before performance: Nice, pretty intimate, contemporay theatre space. Audience seating almost semi-circular around deep but pretty narrow apron with two voms leading steeply down & under audience. Stage is preset with suggested kitchen: small table w/ 3 chairs, old period gas stove, window frame suspended over wall of suggested green leaves. Proscenium frames apron and red drapes close it off. I'm sitting at one edge, 4th row, which gives me good view of audience. Mostly middle-aged to older audience with some younger. Feels like "an evening at the theatre", not at all hip but not really stuffy, either. Real American (but not in the same way as the Mid-America Truck Show or Mary Kay convention, both nearby). Not unpleasant contrast to hip audience last night at Wooster Group.

End of Act 1: I like the play. It raises all sorts of gender-construction/art/theatre/representation questions in very plain language (set in Midwest 1920s). Acting is not great. Standard professional American stage acting, pretty sitcom-y and indicated, no one really present. "Shmacting." Play alternates between naturalistic scenes of small-town folks trying to put together a French 18th Century melodrama (well, in the style of) and finished scenes from the play. I much prefer the period piece, which is wildly heightened and overdone. Seems much more honest than the "realistic" scenes. I wonder what the audence members think of the ideas in the play at this point, or if they're just enjoying the story. Actually, the gender-bending ideas are very safe and tame. But at least they're there.

After end: Well, the weak performances got to me more and more (actually, one actor seemed more able to pull it off than the others), and the writing seemed to weaken, too. Illusion and reality got confused as the characters met their actors (played by female members of the cast), which could be a really interesting idea if the acting and the writing got much better (esp. the acting--the actresses didn't mimic their male counterparts in an interesting way at all. The next-to-last scene got very interest with actors appearing in and out of their female characters. There was an obvious ending as the curtain went up on the play. But then the playwright added one more scene, back in the kitchen, a happy resolution to all the conflicts and reflection upon art and life: godawful. Why??? Really needs to be cut!

In the end, the script had the potential to be interesting but the production was mostly disappointing.

3/24/06 Reactions to The Wooster Group's "The Emperor Jones"

Reactions to Wooster Group's Emperor Jones (St. Ann's Warehouse, NYC, 3/23/06:

Before performance:
St. Ann's Warehouse: A strange walk from the York Street station. Dark, empty streets under the Manhattan Bridge (my first visit to DUMBO, obviously). Finally found the theatre. I'm sitting in a big, high-ceilinged, cement-floored lobby, rough and very nicely done, as the audience gathers under framed posters of The Wooster Group, Mabou Mines, Laurie Anderson, "Under the Radar" Festival, etc. Seems like a nice crowd of consciously hip (or hoping to be) but unostentatious people. Or maybe they're just longing for a good theatre experience.
House: rows of folding chairs slope sharply up from stage. 200 capacity? Stage is a platform raised 18" on open steel supports, about 30' across and 15' deep. Poles at corners connected by light steel frame above (not a grid). Stage floor white linoleum (except for about two feet on upstage edge). Additional thicker vertical pipe with lots of thick wires about 12"-18" long sticking out of it. Two smallish palms at u.l. and u.r. and rolling "throne" preset left. Two audio technicians sat at tables off s.r. edge of platform.
Florescent strips suspended above and behind frame (just on u.s. and s.l. sides?). Other light provided by conventional stage lighting. Large t.v. monitor (not flat screen, not projection screen) placed behind platform u.c. Three or four large unlit instruments (parcans? bigger) mounted at back wall (u.s.).


Immediately after performance:

Yes. That is it. Perfect. Incredible choices.

Later I need to get specific about what exactly so right about those choices. For now: It was SO CLEAR. The signs were clear and clean and performed with exactitude. Effortless, even--in a way--when Vaulk/Jones was in the final frenzied throes. No, that's not it. There was total commitment and perfect focus and I had not doubt that she was totally connected, but there was no doubt that the everything was being signed. Partly because of the framing and production choices (microphones and all that went with it, for example) but also because of the way those choices were performed. The dances were an extreme example: performed effortlessly and with full concentration, not tossed off but not insisted upon, either; not even presented, merely offered.

No question whether or not the three performers were present.

Nothing got in the way of what was being conveyed to me.

(I'm saying nothing about what the piece said. Well, that's not true, the form said almost everything. But the literal content went to the heart of race construction, minstrelsy)

Auction/whipping scene(s?): seemed to get under the constructed character to an essential experience. Is that wrong? Is that my sentimental reading of the performance?

The music was perfect and got REALLY LOUD.


Performance details:

Lights out
Image on TV Monitor upstage center (behind acting area): negative high-contrast image of woman (Kate Valk in blackface?) speaking and humming in black dialect.

In dark, Valk sits n chair dlc (she looked immensely tall as she came on in dark). Lights up reveal Valk as Jones: Very black face w/ red lips and neck (unpainted hands). Black wet-looking long hair tied back. Costume layered, heavy brocaid (?) coat, pants, w/ Japanese obi-looking thing wrapped around waist; skirt or long coat (over pants?); tall, black boots. Sitting in wheeled chair which she rolls around acting area using her feet. Holding large wireless mic on 3' "boom" with handle at other end (reminiscent of a scepter though not in any literal sense).

Jones/Smithers scene 1: Smithers is seated behind acting area (slightly left of c.) facing off left (looking at video monitor in wings); he speaks into a microphone and keeps eyes on his monitor. Valk rolls around front of acting area eyes focused above and cutting from one side to other as she talks to Smithers (she's actually looking into to video monitors mounted high over 1st row); consciously uses microphone w/pole as she speaks into it.

[Valk's performance is amazing: speaks in heavy dialect very reminiscent of minstrel shows/Amos 'n Andy. I notice in particular that every time she say "I" she opens her mouth wide and speaks from back of throat, similar to the way she laughs. Her movements are unforced but very strong and definitive; she almost hits a pose before she speaks (though not quite as stylized as that would indicate--moves as she speaks but with clarity & control). She's definitely acting "in character" but her speech and movement are clearly performed as "signs", as demonstration rather than exactly inhabiting the character. And yet she gives herself entirely to the moment as she performs. Absolutely focused and in a sense effortless because not a trace of strain beyond what is called for. It's incredible: the clearest example of what seems to me to be what Brecht was calling for that I've ever seen. Very, very powerful and very, very present.]

[Shepard's performance Smithers is also terrific. What strikes me most is his effortless quality similar yet different from Valk's--the effortless is part of his character yet separate from it. He's at the back of the theatre (off the raised stage) doesn't move, he's not looking out (profile only visible) yet he's absolutely present.]

The first scene is long and, in one sense static (though Valk is foregrounded and very active in gesture and movement of her wheeled chair) but actually incredibly dynamic. Again, both actors are absolutely present. [A third performer becomes apparent: the Stage Assistant (Ari Fliakos, who performs Smithers on alternate nights). Throughout the performance, he positions the chair, prepares and hands props, etc.; he also performs in a couple of the "dances" later in the play. All his movements are executed with absolute efficiency, choreographed really, and performed with a bit of a flair which I found a bit too much; I found myself wondering how the piece would change if he we more like that stage assistant I remember from the traveling Chinese Opera troupe in Malaysia: cigarette hanging out of his mouth, efficient but apparently bored.] Another very interesting component of the scene was that when he was not speaking words, Shepard made strange sounds into his mic which combined with other ambient electronic sounds (I think, at this point) to underlie Valk's speeches. Some of his sounds included drinking out of a large wine bottle in quick, stylized movement & sound.

Through the entire scene and throughout the performance, there were images on the upstage video monitor which seemed (usually) to be a distorted b&w picture of Valk doing the scene (?) but definitely not a live feed. For the most part, this use of video didn't contribute much to the scene for me, but it was used very effectively at certain times.

After the opening scene, Valk and Shepard don tall flat conical hats (like feudal Japanese royalty?) and perform a dance to music without words in which they perform the same movements side-by-side with total attention but absolutely no effort; something about the effortlessness of the dance seemed to me to be saying, "See, this is what we are doing at all times, even if it doesn't exactly seem like it." It was clearly a demonstration of moves and gestures, some of which reminded me of the Hustle in a funny way (I feel silly making that dated reference). It was an integral and necessary part of the performance but I can't, right now, say exactly what was going on. They were unsmiling (was Valk smiling just a little) but seemed to be enjoying themselves. I found it delightful. The dance interludes came back in different ways as the play progressed and the tension mounted, until the last one (performed, as I recall, by Shepard & Fliakos with Valk in her chair moving her hands (one hand?) in an agonized reference to her earlier full-bodied pleasurable performance (I think).

Scene 2: One interesting thing about this scene (hunting for stash of food marked by white stone) is that there were three stones placed on stage but not used in the action: Valk mimed turning over stones (with a simple and effortless gesture accentuated by a change in the constant underlying music). In fact, I'm not even sure the stones were there during the scene: I didn't notice them until the next scene. A curious separation of sign & signifier, I guess (do I know what I'm talking about?).
A motif for the shooting of the six bullets was set up in this scene: I can't remember exactly what was on the screen during the buildup to firing the pistol (though it was definitely b&w) but when the shot was fired, the music intensified and the screen showed a pulsating orange circular pattern (I think). Very effectively bumped up the tension in a very distanced way (real effort was made not to make the video to present: relatively small screen behind acting area, usually b&w with distortion and "noise" in picture).

I need to look at O'Neill's script, but I think in subsequent scenes, the performance had more interaction between Valk/Jones and Shepard/Smithers that is scripted (interpolated scenes?). I remember Shepard onstage with Valk: at one point he lowered what seemed to be a folding backrest (Crazy Creek?) built into his costume--which was similar to Valk's in its layered, vaguely Japanese look (his eye makeup added to that effect)--and reclined on the stage. At another point (where was this? later in the play), he sits centerstage with legs out, Valk sits in his lap, pulls up her skirt, and his legs become hers (his knees up at this point). He holds her microphone w/boom and they have a dialogue. In another scene (or dance? but with dialogue), Valk & Shepard do a kind of fight/bullfight with him standing center trying to strike her with fly swatter as she charges him holding wine bottle.

Particularly memorable moments: Valk/Jones prays for forgiveness (struck here and elsewhere as she becomes more desperate by the extremity of her acting: absolutely impassioned and absolutely controlled); Valk being whipped (scene 6?)--sound cracked out, Valked reacted with extreme physical gesture (while seated)--almost moment of greatest intensity for me (sentimental empathy? intended?); when Valk has vision of witch doctor, Shepard performs dance of lunging from u.r. into center towards her while wearing strange teeth (other costume change?)--seemed to me to invoke a terror of Whiteness, he was a real white devil figure. Led up to shooting the final (silver) bullet so the tension & tempo were very intense (it was perhaps during this scene that the Stage Assistant would run on from s.l., gyrate with pelvic thrusts, and run off 2X.)

This is frustrating: I can't remember the moment when the big lighting instruments spread across the upstage wall and aimed straight across at the audience came on (not quite blinding. Choice of moment seemed right but I can't remember exactly when. Firing of final bullet? Later? Just stayed up a moment, then faded again.

At a certain moment near the end, the steel frame which had appeared to me to be supported by poles at the corners was lowered almost to the floor. I guess the intent was to entrap Valk/Jones. Just about the only aspect of the production that seemed extraneous, superfluous to me.

Toward the end, Valk was on the floor using the mic on a microphone stand so that it was very near the floor but she didn't have to hold it; again, speaking into the mic was a central part of the image and somehow a very, very powerful aspect of the scene.

For the final scene between Smithers and the native chief, the chief was represented by an image on the video monitor (color, or tinted); I guess his voice was pre-recorded unless somehow Valk was providing it (at this point she was far s.r. on knees facing u.s.). Shepard was back in his chair at the back of the stage facing away from the central monitor. After the chief explained that they had killed Jones, Vaulk walked to the center of the stage and lay down, face up, with her shirt open revealing a bloodstained undershirt. After lying there for a bit, she got up and walked to stage right again. Thus, the performance ended not with a bang but a whimper, which seemed right. Rather than an emotional catharsis, I was left with a cool, calm feeling of, "Isn't that interesting," and an unbounded admiration for the work.

3/23/06 Reactions to Tina Landau's "Midsummer Night's Dream"

Reactions to Tina Landau's Midsummer Night's Dream:

Awful. Left at intermission (after 1 1/2 hours). I should have stayed to see it through, in the interest of some kind of fairness, but I couldn't stand to see the last scene which would have been painful. And I was with friends. Lavish set design made no sense--just "postmodern" (not really) glitz.

Lots of steel poles that fairies hung from and walked through above (spikes extending allowed them to move)--had someone read The Baron in the Trees or something? Sometimes they hung by ropes, once in hammocks. Question was: why? What did it say?

Acting uniformly awful (Helena was ok; in fact, the lovers were the least offensive, got some good jokes, but not really interesting, didn't push it. Lysander indicated he was getting horny by heavy breathing. Period.). Trying to be slick but not even that. Casting awful (men cast only for beefcake?). Theseus/Oberon was the worst. From the moment he opened his mouth, I knew we were in trouble. Didn't seem to have a clue. Egeus seemed kind of like an old drunk (the actor, and consequently the character) and went up on his lines a bit. Which was funny because he returned as Peter Quince, who was played as a derelict (why?).

Fairies were homoerotic beefcake in little shorts and climbing harnesses and some kind of bathing caps. Why? Some kind of attempt at campy, edgy sexuality which failed.

Music all live and insipid. Band was called "Groovelily" which may say it all. Spells were sung, which might have added something to an interesting production.

I have never seen the Mechanicals--bottom, especially--try so hard to be funny and fail so completely.

Whole production was VERY EFFORTFUL.

Main thing is that there was no intelligence and no idea behind the production (David Bradshaw would say that it didn't have an idea in its pretty little head, only, believe me, it wasn't pretty). Just glitz done very badly.

(I wonder if my reactions would have been so vehement if Roger and Zakia hadn't been with me. I hope so. I think so. I know that the final number before intermission, a full-out production number led by Puck and obviously titled "All Shall Be Well" (repeated over and over and over) really made me want to throw up. The very worst kind of Broadway cheese.

3/21/06 Reactions to Asheville School's "The Hamlet Experiment"

NOTE: entry written without benefit of notes March 21, three weeks later)

PLAY: The Hamlet Experiment
DAY/DATE/CURTAIN: 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26, ‘06
COMPANY: Asheville School (high school production
DIRECTOR: Wendy Kussrow
VENUE: stage of Graham Theatre (no relation)
HOUSE SIZE & TYPE: theatre ordinarily seats about 350 proscenium, but in this case--a first for this theatre that I know of--the audience was seated on the stage in four sections facing the center. The main drape was closed, creating a “black box”. Actors made entrances from four directions (though I don’t remember the “upstage” point used for entrances). The main acting area was center but extended toward what would ordinarily be the wings. Platforms were raised above all four entrances and were used for followspots (operated by Hamlet’s #2 & #3), acting area (s.r. above metallic sliding doors), and s & l operators/announcer (s.l.). Seating for 80 people (I think).

General reactions: A fun, adventurous, experiment that, for me, didn’t work more often than it did but was worth it. I feel quite ambivalent because I applaud Wendy, her staff, and her students for shaking up expectations, especially in a high school (albeit private and high-class) environment. And especially for playing around with the text to the degree that this production did (cutting and pasting, distributing the soliloquies among three Hamlets). At the same time, the production fell prey to some very familiar problems: It took itself far too seriously (though the “serious” opening--a disembodied voice inviting us all to witness the experiment and giving us some instructions--was fun, too). The cutting made for some real problems (no mention of Fortinbras until the very end, and then: who???) and other difficulties that I can’t remember right now. The addition of two other follow-spot-wielding Hamlets to share in the soliloquies and some other scenes was interesting and took the pressure off the girl who played the role most of the time, but I didn’t really get the reasoning behind the choice as far as the play goes. Some of the time I felt that Hamlet was succombing to the pressure he was putting on himself but at other times some other purpose was apparently being served. I wished the other two actors could get down off their perches: the followspots were good but more could have been done with the Hamlets moving in concert, I think.
I have one over-riding reaction: I saw my own kind of directing choices in Wendy’s production and I winced a bit: “Interesting” choices that didn’t seem organic to the process or the text but were made because they were interesting and unusual or made good pictures (and unmotivated movement). I am SO GUILTY OF THIS!
I’m not being fair to Wendy and I’m neglecting to mention all kinds of things about the production. This isn’t a review, it’s a personal reaction. I hope she got many, many kudos for the production (especially from parents, administrators, faculty) because she took a chance. And most important of all, she created a space (literally and metaphorically) where something had the potential of really happening.

3/21/06 Reactions to Blackfriars "Tis Pity" and "R & J"

NOTE: entry written(from notes) March 21)

PLAY: ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore
DAY/DATE/CURTAIN: Sat, Feb. 24, 2006
COMPANY: SSE (now American Shakespeare Center)
DIRECTOR: company (Actors’ Renaissance Season)
VENUE: Blackfriars Playhouse
HOUSE SIZE & TYPE: modern reconstruction of Jacobean playhouse; modified thrust with galleries; 10 seats on stage; intimate (capacity?)

Notes taken at the time:

(sitting on stage before performance begins) Theatre is beautiful. Much more impressive than I expected. Feels larger, more substantial, more professional (more “respectable”?): there’s real money here. Interestijng how that conveys respectability--even to me. Bun not just bomey: good taste, too, in all the wood, the chandeliers, the heavy raw beams supporting the galleries, the painted fascia (?). Beautiful wood everywhere.

(reactions after performance)
* All the songs (and staging of songs) terrific! Hip, funny, musically polished, fun.

* “Spelling Bee” announcement was a hilarious and clever way of combining housekeeping (intervals, cellphones, exits, snack bar, snack bar, snack bar) with audience warm-up. Actress in little girl costume stood in center of stage while offstage voice announced spelling bee, gave her words to spell, interrupted & bullied her. Still, I wonder if you could do more to get the audience rowdy. Hilarious but not direct interaction w/audience.

Mixed reaction to play itself. Thought the mix of periods in costuming worked well (actors basically made their own costume choices; choice to mix periods evolved naturally). Staging was ok but I would have liked more interaction w/ audience (use of props?).

Tempo: moved very well and didn’t seem rushed (how much cut?).

Text: handled pretty well by all. Some actors clearer than others but all very much in command of text.

Acting: comic characters (Bergetto & Poggio) worked very well--and death of Bergetto paid off VERY well (shocking and poignant). Richardetto (Doctor) plalyed as comic character, mad scientist type, which was too jokey for me though actor did well. Quite impressed by Friar/Donado: strong actor. Soranzo played quite sympathetically--very much Othello to Vasques’ Iago (am I being racist? Soranzo played by only black actor). Seems like something more interesting could be done with the character.
Biggest disappointment was with actors playing the brother/sister/lovers, Giovanni & Annabella: Both good-looking but not much there. NO LUST! Their scenes should have been hot but they weren’t (Hippolita, now she was sexy!). Giovanni seemed especially weak as an actor. (Couldn’t he have at least opened his shirt when asking her to kill him? Would have started something.

Choices: Well, no director--and, while I really like the idea as an experiment, I think it showed. I kept waiting for more intelligent, bolder, and more coherent choices. Mining the humor is fine, but many of the choices were too jokey for me (Doctor, reacting to Cardinal’s injustice indicated comic frustration in a gaggy way--as far as I can recall). I’m not sure what I would do with this play--in many ways, the production brought out more than I got from my cursory re-reading--but I think it should be disturbing, excessive, grotesque (Giovanni could be eerily, quietly crazed in final scene).

BUT: My favorite scene was Hippolita’s masque and subsequent death. Very stylized, strange, sexy--made me think whole play could work as movement piece, non-naturalistic (why is default acting choice w/ renaissance plays always naturalism? There again, masque itself was “extra-textual” (like songs except directly called for in text)--company shines in that department (but the staging of her death, which includes dialogue, was great in same way).

Another bold choice: Giovanni stabbed Annabella in her cunt/womb. Strange, disturbing, a bit hard to see. With better actors it might have been a really stunning choice.

This theatre is amazing. I sat on the stage (s.l. side) for most of performance, though I was in gallery above s.r. for Act 2.

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NOTE: entry (from notes) written March 21)

PLAY: Romeo and Juliet
DAY/DATE/CURTAIN: 2:00 pm Sun, Feb. 25, ‘06
COMPANY: SSE (now American Shakespeare Center)
DIRECTOR: company (Actors’ Renaissance Season)
VENUE: Blackfriars Playhouse
HOUSE SIZE & TYPE: modern reconstruction of Jacobean playhouse; modified thrust with galleries; 10 seats on stage; intimate (capacity?)

(sitting on stage before performance) I would love to perform in this space with a full house (especially in the upper galleries). In the right circumstances, the architecture should give a sense of the crowd as a crowd, a feeling of volitility (as I thought possible at CRASS all those years ago). I wonder if the very beauty and institutional feeling of this very nice theatre makes that kind of volitile crowd scenes impossible.

Quick thoughts right after performance: I enjoyed this production much more than I expected (worried about actors playing Giovanni & Annabella appearing again as Romeo & Juliet, though the choice makes perfect sense as a way of underlining the similarities between the two plays).

Funny: As I moved around at the intervals (onstage to front row to rear gallery) my sense of involvement changed to the point that I was bored in the gallery. I moved back to the stage for the last act and my interest picked up again (also due to construction of play).

One disappointment: the songs and pre-show business not nearly as entertaining as in last night’s performance. Good, but a bit more ho-hum. Or it was just me. However, I got a big kick out of the actor playing the Prince doing the Prince song, “My Name is Prince” backed up by whole cast. Well-done and funny.

I thought the actors playing R and J did a much better job (solid, though not extraordinary). Interesting. How much had to do with their and our familiarity--to say the least--with the script. They seemed more able to commit, to make bolder choices. Hard to say about the other actors. Mercutio was big, as he should be, but not really surprising--his “Queen Mab” speech was good, not great, and his play with Romeo and Nurse good and dirty. His acting seemed to advertise itself.

One relatively small choice near the end threatened to ruin the whole performance for me: The Romeo-Apothacary scene was played very gaggy (by Apoth.): he was a crazed madman behind the barred window in the u.l. door; the poison was an ordinary tea bag (which Romeo featured as he left--is there something in the text about an “infusion”? Don’t care--bad choice). Finally, the Apoth. raised a claw a la Freddy Kruger. Really almost did in the whole play for me, as if the actors were saying, “Why are we doing this stupid, overdone cliche of a play?” Why didn’t Jim kill that idea. Weakness of actor-directed production.

Did the actors do a better job with R & J than with ‘Tis Pity? Wis I more involved after talking to jim? Was the familiarity of the script comforting? Is it simply a much better-written play than ‘Tis Pity? Don’t know.

Much later thoughts about the questions poised above: I was dreading R & J a bit and actually enjoyed it (I’ve seen this play ‘way too much). I’d like to know (from the actors) how different the experience of being provided only with “sides” was in working on the two plays. Obviously, even if no one read the whole play before rehearsals, R & J is much more in our heads than ‘Tis Pity. So maybe the actors really felt much more secure. Of course that familiarity led to the awful Apothocary choice. On the other hand, I think that they probably didn’t quite know what to do with the whole grotesque revenge tragedy aspect of Tis Pity, so they wen’t more readily to humor and the result was that the play seemed much thinner than R & J. So: What does all this say about the need for a director? Is a director’s job to realize a “vision” of the play, to guide the actors and designers toward a mostly premeditated idea? Or is it to guide everyone on an adventure in which no one really knows the destination? In which case, shouldn’t creative actors be able to guide themselves?

Finally: Although I don’t think that this company’s work usually fulfills the promise of it’s attempt to use original practices to free the audience from the kind of bourgeois decorum imposed by a proscenium, darkened house, I’m re-inspired by their attempts to create a live, immediate event using renaissance texts and practices combined with contemporary sensibilites (especially musical). They’re actually trying to do something (and sustain a large business at the same time) rather than just market the same old same old Shakespeare. They take some chances. Good for them!

3/19/06 Thoughts on theatre, literature, memory

Sabbatical thoughts 3/19/06:

After talking to Ron Bashford for three hours and reading more in Roach (Cities of the Dead): My questions about "virtual" vs. "actual" performance--whether theatre is or has to be narrative--are really worries about literature and an expression of my long-held and very ordinary discomfort with plays as enacted literature. But to use a text in performance isn't necessarily to assume that the text is the performance. Especially if, as Roach (and Schechner and all the others) proclaims, performance is enacted memory or restored behavior. The point is to bring all the participants into the present moment. If we are enacting the past or the memory of the past, implicit in the very idea of a text (thought not, emphatically not, implicit in the idea of "rehearsal"), we are doing it right now. If we are telling stories, what's important is not so much the story itself as the experience we are sharing right now.

One way to get around the illusion that the text is the event (the narrative trap? the "virtual" aspect?) is to make the text evident as text and to construct the present experience as an encounter with the text--or with the memory of the text (redundant if the text is itself embodied memory). Which prepares me, I guess, for The Wooster Group's Emperor Jones.

I suppose Ron's question is: If the performers are living in the present moment, creating the absolute now-ness of the event, why is it necessary to belabor the obvious through a constructed "confrontation with the text"? I suppose my answer would be, to avoid the temptation to slip into the comfortable past: the event is constructed to help keep us in the present, to reinforce and aid the performer in that task. Pretty much as Thornton Wilder does with his text, which is, yes, a blueprint, not a finished piece of literature.

Furthermore: If I were serious about separating theatre from literature--and teaching students that theatre is not a branch of literature, which is something I've always tried to teach--I would have succeeded in separating the Theatre Department from the English Department by now. Instead, through timidity and a desire to please everyone (letting loyalty to friends or fear of alienating them trump integrity), I've kept things more or less static for twenty years. Amazing.

In my defense (and thinking of Havel): Would I have demonstrated integrity by letting an idea like "theatre is not a branch of literature" determine my actions and lead to a possible sacrifice of friendship, collegiality, and collaboration? Isn't that the thinking of an ideologue?

3/13/06 New Orleans photos

Some photos I took of New Orleans six months post-Katrina.

Broadmore (slated to become a park, but fighting it):


The Lakeview area:


The Lower Ninth Ward:

3/4/06 Initial reactions on travelling to gulf

This is not about theatre. This is a copy of a letter I've emailed to NYT columnist Nicholas Kristoff after having been on the Mississippi gulf coast and in New Orleans for two days:

Dear Mr. Kristof,

I've read and enjoyed your columns for a long time (if "enjoyed" is the right term for something that regularly raises my ire, indignation, and blood pressure at our constant failure to help the helpless). I admire the way you consistently shed light in dark places and humanize the sufferers. You do a great service.

I'm writing you from New Orleans to ask you to consider the forgotten here and on the gulf. I know the scale of suffering isn't the same as Darfur, to which you are returning, or Sri Lanka (I just watched your video report on the NYT website, and your call for Bush to lead a war on global poverty specific and right and an exercise in futility given his record). But the crisis for people here isn't over and the feeling is that the country has forgotten them. Sure, Mardi Gras was great and fun and a good thing for morale (especially for the people living in the small "isle of denial", where life has returned to some superficial semblance of normality), but:
-- Why are there people still living in tents in Pass Christian, in what looks for all the world like a U.N. refugee camp?
-- Why has the federal government apparently pulled out of recovery efforts, leaving only church groups to try to continue aiding the victims?
-- Why are so many people still "sitting in limbo", unable to know whether to come or go, rebuild or leave, ensnaired in endless coils of red tape? (I think the answer has a great deal to do with the kind of leadership at the very top that sends only one clear message resonating throughout the echelons of bureaucracy below: Cover Your Ass.)
-- Why do virtually all of my friends in this area, who continue to try to get through this day and the next, feel that the country has forgotten them, that the country thinks it's over?
-- Why are so many people looking at this mild winter with trepidation, thinking that the gulf waters are warming already, hurricane season is approaching, and expecting not only more and worse hurricanes but a full-blown epidemic of PTSS?
-- Why isn't there a Marshall Plan in full swing to bring this area back from the greatest natural disaster the country has known?
-- Why has not this administration been brought down (impeached, resigned, whatever) if for nothing else--and there's so much else--than a total and abject failure of leadership? What's happened to my country when smoke and mirrors so effectively substitue for accountability?

Mr. Kristoff, I'm writing to you because I admire you. I know the world and its attendant problems are huge, and the sight of that boy starving to death in Sri Lanka won't soon get out of my head (although I'm well aware that our powers of forgetting are also huge). You must be exhausted from trying to do so much. I'm just asking that you also consider shedding a little light on the people undergoing this particular ongoing crisis which, like so many, seems in danger of being forgotten.

Thanks very much, and please keep doing what you're doing.

Yours,

Graham Paul